Support the Hines Ward Helping Hands for the Holidays and Hines Ward will personally match the first $20,000 in donations!

Friends and family, Justin and I are involved in launching this Razoo fundraiser for the Hines Ward Helping Hands for the Holidays and the reason for this is quite personal to us.

For those of you that don’t want to read the background what we are asking from you is to do one of two things or both if you are able.

First, please make a donation to the foundation to help us meet the challenge of raising $20,000 this December (Hines Ward has personally committed to matching each dollar donated of the first $20,000 in donations this month).

And secondly, please share this website to help us raise money for the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation while spreading awareness of the foundation.

For those of you interested in why this is so meaningful to us the story of our journey follows.

Our interest in the Helping Hands Foundation started on June 5th of this year. Justin and I traveled to Atlanta to attend a charity weekend for one of our favorite Steelers football players, Hines Ward. We were fortunate enough to spend the evening with Hines bowling and getting to talk about things that extended well beyond football. As he shared his passion for helping mixed-race children, especially those in Korea, we shared with him our heartache of trying to adopt. He was interested in learning what we were going through, what country we were working with and the age limits involved in adopting from Korea. At this point in our lives, we were pursuing International adoption, and as we discussed with Hines, that would make us a mixed race family. Our interest in the Helping Hands Foundation took hold that evening.

Exactly ten days later, our lives started to change. On the evening of June 15th , we received a call from a private domestic adoption lawyer we had contacted in March who had told us not to expect a call from her as she wasn’t placing many babies. Well call us she did. She had a baby girl who was due to be born around July 7th . She had chosen us because she wanted this little girl to have opportunities in life she thought we would provide for her and, she wanted to place her in an environment where the fact that she was mixed-race would not be a barrier to a great life.

Tenley Addison Abernathy was born July 8, 2010 to the two happiest parents and two loving pups who were waiting for her to make our family complete. All we had been through over the past ten years suddenly made sense. This was the child who made our family whole.

It dawned on us as we were preparing for our journey, that there was a reason that our paths should cross with Hines’s at this particular time. From that point, we were committed to working with the Helping Hands Foundation to offer mixed-race children a better life. From the beginning of our marriage, it has been our family’s mission to help others as best we can in whatever manner we can. Tenley will be part of that mission. We look forward to teaching her how it feels to help others especially those not as fortunate as we are.

We committed to Hines that we would personally raise awareness for the Hines Ward Helping Hands foundation along with a minimum of $20,000 this December. To Hines credit he committed to matching dollar for dollar the first $20,000 we raise. Together we have created the Hines Ward Helping Hands for the Holidays fundraiser.

Funds raised will be used to fund a trip to the U.S. for mixed-race children from Korea this month. Additional funds will be used to fund literacy programs for underprivileged children in the Pittsburgh and Atlanta communities.

What I would ask each of you is to do one of two things or both if you are able. First is to make a donation to the foundation to meet the challenge of $20,000 this month and second is to share the website to help us raise money for the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation while spreading awareness of the foundation.

Please join us in our very personal family mission this Holiday Season and help us raise funds for a special weekend in December when Hines brings bi-racial children from Korea to Pittsburgh so that they get a peak into the world of possibility and all that the U.S. has to offer. Please help us help them.